Global meat production is on track to increase by more than 50% by 2050 compared with 2012 levels, putting the world’s food supply on a collision course with planetary limits. Such pressures are particularly acute in Asia, which accounts for more than half of all protein consumption growth so far this century.  

To meet this moment, the Good Food Institute (GFI) has seleced Japan as the location for its newest nonprofit entity. Japan will now join existing GFI affiliates in Singapore, India, Israel, Europe, Brazil and the US, which work collaboratively to accelerate food innovation globally.

“Alternative proteins made from plants, microbes and cultivated animal cells have the ability to satisfy Asia’s skyrocketing meat demand in a more secure and sustainable way,” says GFI Japan’s interim director, Kimiko Hong-Mitsui.

“Just as Japan developed and exported the cutting-edge technologies that brought solar power and other renewables to the world, we now have an opportunity to pioneer the next generation of alternative proteins — the food equivalents of clean energy.” 

Sustainable food options 

Japan’s 101st prime minister, Fumio Kishida, hailed alternative protein technologies, such as cultivated meat — meat produced directly from cells, without having to grow the whole animal — as an important part of “realizing a sustainable food supply.” 

His government also awarded tens of millions of dollars in funding to alt-protein companies, as part of a larger food-sustainability moonshot.

Meat; reimagined 

Reimagining how meat is made is one of humanity’s greatest untapped opportunities, says GFI president and founder Bruce Friedrich, who will address the forthcoming Science and Technology in Society forum in Kyoto. 

“Japan’s R&D ecosystem will play a critical role in supercharging alternative proteins and pioneering the breakthrough technologies our planet urgently needs.”

Among GFI Japan’s top strategic priorities are: identifying opportunities for greater government investment in alt-protein R&D and commercialization, including in the national bioeconomy strategy; supporting local regulators’ efforts to develop a clear path to market for cultivated meat; better connecting Japan’s ‘future food’ companies to their international counterparts; providing timely translations of relevant reports and resources; and facilitating new collaborations between Japanese research institutions and alternative protein scientists around the globe.